'Progress made' in talks between Twitter, Turkey

A team of senior officials from Twitter's management, led by the company's head of global public policy, Colin Crowell, had a meeting on Monday in Ankara

ANKARA – "Progress has been made" in the highly-anticipated meeting in Ankara between senior executives from Twitter and officers from Turkey's information technologies authority, according to information received by Anadolu Agency from the Prime Minister's Office.

A team of senior officials from Twitter's management, led by the company's head of global public policy, Colin Crowell, had a meeting on Monday in Ankara with representatives from Turkey's Information and Communications Technologies Authority (BTK).

Regarding the implementation of Turkey's court decisions, Twitter officials said they would act in a faster and more sensitive way in the future, the PM's office said. "As a sign of goodwill, they implemented five court decisions ahead of the visit."

Turkey and Twitter have recently been on unfriendly terms due to the popular microblogging site's failure to implement Turkish court decisions that ordered the removal of certain web links on the grounds of privacy violations.

Twitter's unwillingness to act in accordance with the rule of law in Turkey led the country's telecoms regulator TIB to block access to the site last month.

As to opening an office in Turkey, the PM's office cited Twitter officials as saying that they were "not categorically against it,” but added that they had not reached to a final decision yet.

Access to the site in Turkey was restored on April 3 after the Constitutional Court ruled that it was a violation of freedom of expression.

Twitter does not have an office in Turkey despite Turkish authorities' requests for it to open a local branch.